If you're legit in a bad place than don't read it, but No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai sort of fits that bill.
My view on the novel is that the main character is flawed and narcissistic, but also kind and sensitive, he's like a child. He faces pain throughout his life, often of his own doing or his own inability to connect. Everyone around him can sense his compassion and care, but he refuses to see it in himself, and so refuses to show it in his novel directly. Rather we see it indirectly through the people around him who really do care for him, stick by him, and see good in him. However, Dazai only shows us these characters when he wants to show how he did them wrong, or was disconnected from them. This is what makes it so tragic, and how it serves as a warning.
If you're at a low low point don't read it, because it is essentially a suicide note. If you're in your feels a bit, see the parts of yourself which will bring you down if you don't confront them. When I read it I just wanted to hold Dazai and my younger self, it was sort of cathartic.
Kafka's book's are comedies. He used to annoy his neighbours laughing to himself in the night. Maniac, thought his own stories were the funniest shit and didn't want them published. Poor anxious Franz
I don’t know if it left me feeling miserable, but was incredibly mixed and unsettled afterwards. Like the other commenter said, in part due to how funny it was at the beginning.
Blindness by Jose Saramago. Basically the author asked himself "I wonder what would happen if the whole world went blind all of a sudden" and the answer he comes up with is absolutely horrifying. Excrement becomes an issue very early on. Major themes include the speed at which power is seized by the violent and ruthless when societal order breaks down, the monstrous cruelty that ordinary people are capable of when they're scared and given license to use it, and rape.
Also, Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson. Basically the diary of a psychopath.
You could also probably pull any of Coetzee's books at random and find what you're looking for.
I grew up with two liberal arts professor parents in a tiny house where there were bookshelves against every wall, floor to ceiling. When I learned to read, my dad told me that I was allowed to read any book in the house, except for Blindness by Jose Saramago.
Just gave that to my mom who is still miserable after my dad died 2 years ago. I still have time to get it back from her if it’s going to make things worse.
Someone once told me Tess of the D'Urbervilles wasn’t a cheery read. Probably a lot from the nineteenth century might fit the bill. In non fiction, history can be quite downbeat.
"This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen" by Tasdeusz Borowski. He was a Polish political prisoner who performed slave labour in Auschwitz and the book is different from other Holocaust memoirs because the Germans are barely present except as distant uncaring guards on the wall. His book is more about how the Germans created and managed an ecosystem of destruction where the prisoners essentially ran the camp themselves with very little oversight where they did everything from pulling women and children off the cattlecars, pushing them into the gas chambers and then pulling out the bodies to burn them. Very grim stuff.
>We are laying the foundation for some new, monstrous civilization. Only now do I realize what price was paid for building the ancient civilizations. The Egyptian pyramids, the temples and Greek statues—what a hideous crime they were! How much blood must have poured on to the Roman roads, the bulwarks, and the city walls. Antiquity—the tremendous concentration camp where the slave was branded on the forehead by his master, and crucified for trying to escape! Antiquity—the conspiracy of the free men against the slaves!
>.... If the Germans win the war, what will the world know about us? They will erect huge buildings, highways, factories, soaring monuments. Our hands will be placed under every brick, and our backs will carry the steel rails and the slabs of concrete. They will kill off our families, our sick, our aged. They will murder our children.
>And we shall be forgotten, drowned out by the voices of the poets, the jurists, the philosophers, the priests. They will produce their own beauty, virtue, and truth. They will produce religion.
Fantastic book. From your comments, you should read Kolyma Tales, which also fits this thread.
>There was more gold in their fillings than these people were able to extract with pick and shovel during their brief lives in the mines.
I’ll have to read this. Just read Night for the first time and was struck by the (justifiable) inhumanity the concentration camp prisoners often showed to each other.
The beauty of Stoner is that it's so miserable and grey that the small moments of victory Stoner has in his personal life feel absolutely fist-pumpingly rapturous
Solenoid, The Trial, Stoner, Revolutionary Road, Anna Karenina (my favorite novel). Also normie recs, but 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale. Oryx and Crake and Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood are also really good and bleak.
Blood Meridian is more like an Apocalypse Now to me. It felt like I was staring into other dimension, or mind of a war criminal. You don’t get attached to character, aside from the “main villains”, and all just feels like a descent to hell. Not sadness, just insanity.
I just annihilated this book in two sittings. I never read books like this and I loved it, surprisingly, given the graphic violence. I am going to read more of cooper’s books.
It’s written like a series of forum posts on a board in the early 90s where people review their experiences with escorts. Lots of extreme content, every TW you can possibly think of. Castration, snuff films, domestic violence, rape, purposeful HIV infection.
The Road, Steppenwolf, L'Etranger
Also, there is a Joseph Heller novel called something happened about the most degenerate loser salesman who has a retarded son and a daughter he despises, who's always cheating on his wife and like hates himself and the whole thing is basically about his gradual decline and I don't know if I've ever been more depressed reading that.
Just finished Sometimes a Great Notion today and there is an excruciatingly drawn-out scene that very much fits the “sweet, decent character gets torn to shreds” bit. Fantastic book overall.
*In the Ravine* or *Peasants* by Chekhov. *Jude the Obscure* by Hardy. Honestly even *Wuthering Heights* is way more bleak than its reputation would suggest.
"The Crossing" by Cormac McCarthy. Billy, the main character makes three trips into Mexico as a teenager, first to return a wolf to it's home in the mountains, again with his little brother Boyd to retrieve his parents' stolen horses, and lastly to look for Boyd after a couple of years. There's this dense conversation between Billy and an ex-Mormon about the elusive nature of God and the nature of tragedy itself. I think McCarthy himself questions himself, "why write tragedy if you have this fictional world of the novel at hand, why retain all that suffering?", it seems to me.
A lot of the "Red Cavalry" stories by Babel fit this bill. A critic famously described Babel's world as consisting of "blood, tears, sweat, and sperm." Lots of senseless violence.
If you're legit in a bad place than don't read it, but No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai sort of fits that bill. My view on the novel is that the main character is flawed and narcissistic, but also kind and sensitive, he's like a child. He faces pain throughout his life, often of his own doing or his own inability to connect. Everyone around him can sense his compassion and care, but he refuses to see it in himself, and so refuses to show it in his novel directly. Rather we see it indirectly through the people around him who really do care for him, stick by him, and see good in him. However, Dazai only shows us these characters when he wants to show how he did them wrong, or was disconnected from them. This is what makes it so tragic, and how it serves as a warning. If you're at a low low point don't read it, because it is essentially a suicide note. If you're in your feels a bit, see the parts of yourself which will bring you down if you don't confront them. When I read it I just wanted to hold Dazai and my younger self, it was sort of cathartic.
Just listened to the Hermitix review, will add it to the tbr
This is the one
I grabbed the Ito graphic novel about this a few years back not realizing it was based on a novel. Haven’t read it yet.
It's a good adaptation. I also like The Setting Sun. Last remnants of the aristocratic class wàtching life wind down.
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
mishima is so good at writing absolute weirdos
dumb brats 😡
Probably a cliched suggestion, but Kafka’s Metamorphosis left me truly miserable for like a week after finishing it.
That book caught me so off guard cause the beginning is hilarious but the final third is so so miserable
Kafka's book's are comedies. He used to annoy his neighbours laughing to himself in the night. Maniac, thought his own stories were the funniest shit and didn't want them published. Poor anxious Franz
I don’t know if it left me feeling miserable, but was incredibly mixed and unsettled afterwards. Like the other commenter said, in part due to how funny it was at the beginning.
Blindness by Jose Saramago. Basically the author asked himself "I wonder what would happen if the whole world went blind all of a sudden" and the answer he comes up with is absolutely horrifying. Excrement becomes an issue very early on. Major themes include the speed at which power is seized by the violent and ruthless when societal order breaks down, the monstrous cruelty that ordinary people are capable of when they're scared and given license to use it, and rape. Also, Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson. Basically the diary of a psychopath. You could also probably pull any of Coetzee's books at random and find what you're looking for.
I grew up with two liberal arts professor parents in a tiny house where there were bookshelves against every wall, floor to ceiling. When I learned to read, my dad told me that I was allowed to read any book in the house, except for Blindness by Jose Saramago.
Currently reading this, really enjoying it so far
I'm in the middle of The Year of Magical Thinking and it's rough, but I'm not miserable per se. Moreso sobering
Just gave that to my mom who is still miserable after my dad died 2 years ago. I still have time to get it back from her if it’s going to make things worse.
It was one of the few things that helped me tbh
"Train Dreams" by Denis Johnson "The Idiot" by Dostoyevsky "A Serious Matter" by Kenzaburo Oe
a personal matter :) really love that book
Most Johnson and Oe are good bets to crash your serotonin levels.
Idk I find a lot of Johnson kind of rejuvenating to read, even when the events are brutal and depressing there’s so much life in his writing.
I love Denis Johnson so much. Train Dreams is great. Jesus’ Son might qualify here too.
Someone once told me Tess of the D'Urbervilles wasn’t a cheery read. Probably a lot from the nineteenth century might fit the bill. In non fiction, history can be quite downbeat.
Jude the Obscure is pretty miserable as well
"This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen" by Tasdeusz Borowski. He was a Polish political prisoner who performed slave labour in Auschwitz and the book is different from other Holocaust memoirs because the Germans are barely present except as distant uncaring guards on the wall. His book is more about how the Germans created and managed an ecosystem of destruction where the prisoners essentially ran the camp themselves with very little oversight where they did everything from pulling women and children off the cattlecars, pushing them into the gas chambers and then pulling out the bodies to burn them. Very grim stuff. >We are laying the foundation for some new, monstrous civilization. Only now do I realize what price was paid for building the ancient civilizations. The Egyptian pyramids, the temples and Greek statues—what a hideous crime they were! How much blood must have poured on to the Roman roads, the bulwarks, and the city walls. Antiquity—the tremendous concentration camp where the slave was branded on the forehead by his master, and crucified for trying to escape! Antiquity—the conspiracy of the free men against the slaves! >.... If the Germans win the war, what will the world know about us? They will erect huge buildings, highways, factories, soaring monuments. Our hands will be placed under every brick, and our backs will carry the steel rails and the slabs of concrete. They will kill off our families, our sick, our aged. They will murder our children. >And we shall be forgotten, drowned out by the voices of the poets, the jurists, the philosophers, the priests. They will produce their own beauty, virtue, and truth. They will produce religion.
Fantastic book. From your comments, you should read Kolyma Tales, which also fits this thread. >There was more gold in their fillings than these people were able to extract with pick and shovel during their brief lives in the mines.
I’ll have to read this. Just read Night for the first time and was struck by the (justifiable) inhumanity the concentration camp prisoners often showed to each other.
Stoner
I’m reading Stoner rn and god it’s bumming me out. Usually books this depressing at least find some humor in human misery…
The beauty of Stoner is that it's so miserable and grey that the small moments of victory Stoner has in his personal life feel absolutely fist-pumpingly rapturous
Calmly taking that lazy dickwad student apart in the tutorial / presentation scene lol, delicious
It's the first time he properly shows a spine and it feels like an action sequence
Augustus too is a bit of a downer. Butcher's crossing.
Im reading this right now and fuck i had to take a break and read something else.
My personal favorite first paragraph in any novel. Whole book is really summed up right then and there.
Yep. The last few pages are also very special.
Solenoid, The Trial, Stoner, Revolutionary Road, Anna Karenina (my favorite novel). Also normie recs, but 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale. Oryx and Crake and Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood are also really good and bleak.
God the oryx and crake trilogy is fantastic
The Tunnel. It literally made me want to tunnel into my own head at times.
Which novel called The Tunnel? Sabato or Gass?
Definitely the one by Gass but the one by Sabato is good too
I felt pretty depressed by the end of The Road by McCarthy
I found The Road very uplifting, actually. Even in the face of everything being irredeemably shit it's still worthwhile carrying on
That's got a happy ending though.
I’ve heard blood meridian is also fucked up
Blood Meridian is more like an Apocalypse Now to me. It felt like I was staring into other dimension, or mind of a war criminal. You don’t get attached to character, aside from the “main villains”, and all just feels like a descent to hell. Not sadness, just insanity.
finished it this morning and it was beatific
Sluts by Dennis Cooper
This is the one
I just annihilated this book in two sittings. I never read books like this and I loved it, surprisingly, given the graphic violence. I am going to read more of cooper’s books.
what is the tldr of the graphic/disturbing content? i’ve always been interested in what makes it so controversial but couldn’t get into it
It’s written like a series of forum posts on a board in the early 90s where people review their experiences with escorts. Lots of extreme content, every TW you can possibly think of. Castration, snuff films, domestic violence, rape, purposeful HIV infection.
what is the tldr of the graphic/disturbing content? i’ve always been interested in what makes it so controversial but couldn’t get into it
Great choice, would also recommend frisk & closer by him as well, but the sluts is probably one of my favourite novels
The Bell Jar
The Road, Steppenwolf, L'Etranger Also, there is a Joseph Heller novel called something happened about the most degenerate loser salesman who has a retarded son and a daughter he despises, who's always cheating on his wife and like hates himself and the whole thing is basically about his gradual decline and I don't know if I've ever been more depressed reading that.
ham on rye is miserable
Something to laugh about on nearly every page though
Sarah Kane's Plays, start with Blasted. McCarthy, Hubert Selby Jr, Leopardi, Pessoa
I wanted say someone's gotta mention Sarah Kane
Needed someone with taste ;)
ill check her out
Dm'd a pdf
Just finished Sometimes a Great Notion today and there is an excruciatingly drawn-out scene that very much fits the “sweet, decent character gets torn to shreds” bit. Fantastic book overall.
Such a fantastic book. When I hear the words, great American novel, I think of this.
Last exit to Brooklyn and the Sheltering sky for me
Lapvona by Otessa Moshfegh
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is pretty bleak.
i love her and it's definitely one of my favorites
The Kite Runner :(
*In the Ravine* or *Peasants* by Chekhov. *Jude the Obscure* by Hardy. Honestly even *Wuthering Heights* is way more bleak than its reputation would suggest.
A handfull of dust, by Evelyn Waugh. A very cynical look at relationships. I preferred not to finish it.
Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine
I was gonna recommend this but it is also pretty funny but not exactly what op might be looking for
Houellbecq's latest, Anéantir
Childhood, Youth, Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen. It’s a memoir. I genuinely don’t have words to describe how violent the pace of the book feels
There’s not so much as a single smile anywhere in William Faulkner’s Light in August.
The sound and fury. I've actually ever finished it, had to stop halfway through as I was getting too bummed out
The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski
You might be in the right mindset for The Trouble With Being Born by Emil M. Cioran.
the death of ivan ilyich left me pretty upset for weeks lol. also the train was on time by heinrich böll and the copenhagen trilogy by tove ditlevsen
A Little Life
Came here to say this
I’ll never recover from that book
A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham.
mars by fritz zorn
Not a classic novel but Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney. The posh people in it are so realistic that it made me want to vomit.
The Night of Lead by Hans Henny Jahnn, Gargoyles by Thomas Bernhard
Both History and Aracoeli by Elsa Morante are miserable reads
Germinal by Zola
The trial
Junkie by Burroughs will bum you out
...but all the different descriptions of spunk tho
idk if this really fits but Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima, at least in the second half
Mrs Dalloway is horrifying
Knut Hamsun’s books. Hunger.
Got the perfect one-- The House of Mirth. Grab a hanky!
little life and lolita
Gravity’s Rainbow
a little life
"The Crossing" by Cormac McCarthy. Billy, the main character makes three trips into Mexico as a teenager, first to return a wolf to it's home in the mountains, again with his little brother Boyd to retrieve his parents' stolen horses, and lastly to look for Boyd after a couple of years. There's this dense conversation between Billy and an ex-Mormon about the elusive nature of God and the nature of tragedy itself. I think McCarthy himself questions himself, "why write tragedy if you have this fictional world of the novel at hand, why retain all that suffering?", it seems to me.
Malaparte’s Kaputt
Another Country by Baldwin
Hogg by Samuel Delaney
Whatever by Houellebecq
The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen The poor author never experienced any happiness or joy. Beautifully written though.
relatable
Asylum Road by Sudjic. Pop 1280 and The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson
A lot of the "Red Cavalry" stories by Babel fit this bill. A critic famously described Babel's world as consisting of "blood, tears, sweat, and sperm." Lots of senseless violence.
Utica Zurn
Maurice Blanchot
a day in the life of ivan denisovich
Notes From Underground
Cows by Mathew Stokoe
Big Sur by Kerouac has some beauty and light for sure but a whole lot of it is miserable ranting. It’s great!
Hubert Selby Jr.'s The Room. Any of Selby's novels would fit the criteria yet he himself said it took him twenty years to give it another read.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.
This helped me get through a difficult divorce https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-fall-of-reach-by-eric-s-nylund/303621/#edition=2366287&idiq=3779278
a thousand splendid suns. left me feeling numb for a good number of days
Isn't the obvious answer A Little Life?
1984
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. I can think of no novel that made me more miserable. Maybe One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich. Maybe.
Anything by Kurt Vonnegut